The Rose Fam

Telling the story of my family is difficult in that, there's not a huge story to tell. My mother is a first-generation immigrant from Brazil, my father the child of a blue-collar family. They were married for a short time during their time as cultists before separating when I was a child. Being the cult-babies we were, my brothers and I were firmly cemented as the black sheep of the family.

We grew up incredibly poor in a small home in upstate NY. The winters were killer, seeing as we had naught but a wood stove to heat our incredibly drafty home, and the summers humid and drowsy.

The city we lived in had been famed in the past for its production of bricks, concrete, and bluestone. It would seem that time and financial stability had forgotten this small city. Luckily for me, this meant a lot of free time spent exploring abandoned factories and buildings.

The Process:

I started out with some simple shapes; the first element I decided to include was the coxinha, a Brazillian street food that is infamous in its deliciousness to our family.

Throughout the project I worked in teal rather than black, as I find black to be really harsh and distracting from form. After incorporating the coxinha and a small band, I thought that the whole thing looked a little too much like a military patch that you might see sewn on someone's shoulder. Some bands will fix that, right?

We're on to something, I think. But man, it's really not leaving enough open space for me to incorporate other elements of my family. How can I make a little space, or change the shape of the crest overall? I thought about my hometown and was struck with the image of the old Dutch church, the tallest building in town. Voila!

Well now, this is getting pretty swanky! All of a sudden it feels so much more balanced and fluid than before. It's really starting to say something about home, and the origins of my family. Here's where we're gonna throw in some type to give it a little more energy.

At this point some of the text orientation was a bit awkward, especially the center text. I chose the phrase "Shut up, I'm right", as one of the greatest past times of my family is to argue with one another. It doesn't matter what the argument is about as long as someone gets to shout at someone else. After this point I moved towards playing around with color, and my future tweaks to the crest would be done on the shirt mockup itself.

I wanted to evoke the brick factories of my childhood in the colors I chose, so I initially began working with dusty yellows and fiery reds. I would end up choosing a more monochrome color palette as I played around more.

This would end up being the final crest. I replaced the details on the shirt with two icons: the paintbrush and the sheep. All of my siblings are artists in some way, and like I mentioned previously, our branch of the family is seen as outcasts.

I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out, although the type is still bugging me a bit. Any feedback would be appreciated!